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It's now 40 years after the last tweak on water levels policy for the St. Lawrence River

Daniel Macfarlane, Special to the Standard-Freeholder

Friday, September 25, 2015
4:31:25 EDT PM

This undated Ontario Hydro archive photo marks the halfway point of concrete placing for the Robert H. Saunders station. Aside providing power to Ontario and New York State, the dam also regulates water flows and levels in the St. Lawrence River.

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The St. Lawrence Seaway and Power project, built by Canada and the U.S. between 1954 and 1959 after a half-century of negotiations, transformed Canada's most iconic river, the St. Lawrence. But the original planners didn't foresee the environmental impacts, particularly the impact of restricting water level changes on the upper St. Lawrence and Lake Ontario.

This megaproject has left a mixed legacy. One the hand, the St. Lawrence Seaway and Power Project was a monumental achievement whose construction is a testament to Canadian ability and cross-border co-operation, an undertaking which has allowed billions worth of hydro-electricity and trade goods to flow.

On the other hand, the shared project was a defeat of sorts for Canadian environmental diplomacy, it never came close to predictions nor to paying itself and had all sorts of ecological ramifications, which included facilitating the passage of many invasive species into the Great Lakes basin.

One of the environmental legacies of the St. Lawrence Seaway and Project is the method of regulating Lake Ontario and the St. Lawrence River down to Montreal. The dams and control works built as part of this project, explained in detail in my book Negotiating a River: Canada, the US, and the Creation of the St. Lawrence Seaway, turned a large stretch of the river into a lake.

Water levels were kept within a specified range that balanced various competing uses: commercial shipping, hydro power, port users downstream at Montreal, shoreline communities and property owners in Lake Ontario. Some are better served by lower water levels, some by higher.

But the process of establishing the initial method of regulation during the 1950s and 1960s was beset by engineering errors, guesses, and partisan politics. As I explain in detail in Negotiating a River, engineers and planners admitted they weren't really sure about what they were doing. As a result, they strove to attain levels, in their own words, "as nearly as may be."

After going through several provisional methods of regulation during the construction, there were several more changes after the opening of the St. Lawrence Seaway and Power Project. Plan 1958-A was superseded by Plan 1958-C in 1962, and then soon after by 1958-D, which compresses the water range to about four feet.

This predictability is beneficial for many human uses, such as electricity at the transborder powerhouse near Cornwall and the canals and locks that allow ships to circumnavigate it. The method of regulation was unsatisfactory from the beginning, as there were quickly significant problems with natural water supply: first low in the 1960s, then high in the 1970s - it turned out that the Great Lakes water levels naturally fluctuate somewhat cyclically. Thus method of regulation 1958-DD, a tweak of its predecessor, was adopted.

It became apparent steady water levels and regulating works were detrimental to the St. Lawrence ecosystem, especially coastal wetlands, littoral zones, and fish populations. Natural variability, such as happens during seasonal changes to an unregulated river, even one with a steady flow like the St. Lawrence, are very beneficial for shoreline ecologies and animals such as muskrat. Wetlands can serve as shock absorbers for climate change impacts.

Since 2000, the International Joint Commission (IJC), the binational organization responsible for overseeing St. Lawrence/Lake Ontario water levels, has been studying, developing, and modifying plans for a new method of regulation.

Last year, the IJC officially recommended Plan 2014 to the Canadian and American governments, which would allow for greater spring and fall fluctuations of up to 20 centimetres while continuing to moderate high and low levels.

Many St. Lawrence communities and environmental advocacy groups have strongly supported Plan 2014. However, Seaway administrators, shipping interests, and some shoreline owners worried about erosion on their property are opposed.

Perhaps there should be some compensation for property owners who were given permission to build on the water in the past, but they can't be allowed to stand in the way of a new method of regulation. In fact, similar complaints were partially responsible for the flawed system that the IJC put in place a half century ago.

Since the IJC can't unilaterally implement its Plan 2014 recommendation, it is up to the Canadian and American governments to decide what to do.

They must adopt it. The current method of regulation is an anachronism.

Plan 2014 is just a step in the right direction.

The history of trying to regulate the river/seaway shows there is an underlying conceptual flaw in the belief that we can, or should, control hydrological regimes. Plan 2014 still continues this in some respects.

Though we can't restore this ecosystem to some perfect past 'natural' state, there should be more emphasis on adapting human activities to the needs of water bodies, rather than the other way around.

Daniel Macfarlane is an assistant professor of freshwater policy in environmental and sustainability studies at Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo, Mich., and author of "Navigating a River: Canada, the U.S., and the Creation of the St. Lawrence Seaway." This column is published by the Standard-Freeholder with the author's permission.